Brown and White Vol. 129 no. 6

              The Brown and White Vol. 129 No. 6
Tuesday, September 22, 2015 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
When Patricia Sittikul, ’17, was
going through formal sorority recruit-ment
two years ago, she was warned
by many friends to keep her sexuality
a secret because it might alter her
chances of getting into a sorority. She
was more than relieved when, on her
last night of recruitment, she was
able to come out about who she really
was to the women she now calls her
sisters.
Although several of Lehigh’s
LGBTQ individuals – such as Sittikul
– have had positive experiences,
and despite the numerous efforts
on the part of the administration,
Lehigh was still ranked No. 11 on
the Princeton Review’s list of Top 20
Most Unfriendly Campuses for the
LGBTQ Community.
Chelsea Fullerton started her job
as the director of the campus Pride
Center for Sexual Orientation and
Gender Diversity right around the
A Business Insider article released
last year listed Lehigh as the No. 8
college in terms of most on-campus
alcohol arrests per 1,000 students.
The data came from the Department
of Education’s Office of Postsecondary
Education, which tracks only on-cam-pus
crime reports and not those from
surrounding areas.
According to crime statistics
released by the Lehigh University
Police Department, 123 individuals
were arrested for liquor law viola-tions
in 2014, and 326 were referred
for campus disciplinary action for the
same violation.
These numbers have increased
since 2013, when 105 individuals
were arrested and 292 were referred.
Lehigh’s police department has been
working to reduce these numbers.
“Crime has been down for five
straight years,” Chief of Police
Edward Shupp said.
Although arrests have increased
slightly, Lehigh’s student body has
also grown in recent years.
“I think every college campus
has alcohol and issues related to
drugs and alcohol,” said Christopher
Mulvihill, the assistant dean of
Student Conduct and Community
Expectations. “I don’t think Lehigh is
any better or worse. In the 15 years
that I’ve worked here, the quality of
students has improved and there’s
not nearly as much emphasis on alco-hol
as there was even 10 years ago.”
Shupp said police have been focus-ing
on prevention strategies and edu-cation.
“(The police department’s) job is
more to educate than cite,” Mulvihill
said. “They try not to cite unless they
really have to.”
Citations are far less serious than
arrests and are more frequently
issued.
Shupp said there are few offi-cer-
initiated citations. Many of the
citations are made after bystanders
or Gryphons place calls to the police.
“The police do not arrest everyone
they stop,” Mulvihill said. “If they
cite one out of 10 people they stop
and talk to who’ve been drinking,
then that’s a lot. Unless you’re ask-ing
for it, they’re not going to cite
you.”
According to Shupp, the police only
arrest those who put themselves or
others in danger.
He said not all of those who are
arrested on campus are Lehigh stu-dents
– approximately 15 percent
of arrests do not involve individu-als
who attend Lehigh and have no
With a growing emphasis on the
role of technology in academia, stu-dents
will now be able to participate
in interdisciplinary programs thanks
to Lehigh’s Data X initiative.
The university launched Data X
last May to build programs centered
around computer science and data
analytics, while flowing those disci-plines
into more traditional academic
areas like journalism and marketing.
Daniel Lopresti, the director of
time the rankings were released.
Where some might say having this
rank as a starting point might be a
disadvantage, she sees it as an oppor-tunity
to start from scratch.
Fullerton’s first goal in mend-ing
the social issues still occurring
around the topic of LGBTQ relations
is to form relationships with students
outside her office and to become a
the Data X initiative and interim
dean of the P.C. Rossin College of
Engineering and Applied Science,
said the program is working on hir-ing
new faculty to continue to devel-op
Data X.
“People know academic programs,
majors, minors, centers – people nat-urally
think Data X is like a pro-gram,”
Lopresti said. “Like it’s going
to be a new major or research center
or minor or certificate. The current
version of Data X is none of those.
What it does, though, is enable a
bunch of things.”
Student demand for computer sci-ence
programs has greatly increased,
and the number of students majoring
in computer science has practically
tripled, Lopresti said. More impor-tantly,
though, he said students are
choosing to partner their comput-er
science degrees with majors or
minors in the College of Arts and
Sciences, the business school and a
variety of engineering degrees.
Computer science and business
student Jane Nekrasova, ’17, said
she believes connecting computer sci-ence
to other disciplines will lead to
increased success in careers.
“I think that it is crucial for Lehigh
to prioritize creating fields of comput-er
science that are connected to other
disciplines because with the constant
technological advances there is a
high demand for those kinds of stu-dents,”
Nekrasova wrote in an email.
Companies have started reaching
out to the university about Data X.
“Just today I’ve had two separate
meetings with companies that are
aggressively trying to recruit Lehigh
students, and the reason they got in
touch with us is because of Data X,”
Lopresti said.
Innovative Systems, a company
Data X program seeks interdisciplinary faculty
Shunnan Liu/B&W Staff
Yuan Xue, ’15G, engages in
cross-displinary research in
Packard Lab on Friday. The
Data X Initiative meets student
demand with emerging edge of
technology.
By ABBY MCBRIDE
B&W Staff
See DATA X Page 2 See ALCOHOL Page 4
See FULLERTON Page 3
Samantha Silverman/B&W Staff
Chelsea Fullerton, director of the Pride Center for Sexual
Orientation and Gender Diversity, stands at the entrance of the
Pride Center on Friday. Chelsea says, all students are welcome to
spend time in the Pride Center.
By SAMANTHA DIPAOLO
B&W Staff
On the road to LGBTQ inclusivity
By REBECCA WILKIN
Assistant News Editor
headquartered in Pittsburgh, was
one of the companies to connect with
Lehigh because of Data X. Microsoft
was also motivated to release the
software DreamSpark to all Lehigh
students to use for free that was
formerly just for computer science
students.
Finding faculty for the project,
however, takes time and patience.
Lopresti believes the process will
take three to four years. The new fac-ulty
will at first lead to new courses,
but then also minors, certificates and
possibly even a new major. Students
will also have increased independent
Samantha Tomaszewski/Made with Canva
Lehigh ranked
in top 10
for alcohol-related
arrests
The Pride Center’s new
director Chelsea Fullerton
stresses the role of the
campus community in the
push toward inclusivity